


Oceans Apart

by Silver_Shortage_in_Markarth



Series: In But A Moment of Time [2]
Category: Baten Kaitos, Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Common Interests, Friendship, Gen, May or may not be OOC because I haven't played Baten Kaitos in years, Ocean talk, Some other mushy garbage, making new friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-16
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-07-13 05:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16011020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silver_Shortage_in_Markarth/pseuds/Silver_Shortage_in_Markarth
Summary: They knew each other for but a short time.Their common ground, however, helped forge a most special bond between them.





	1. Chapter 1

Armin was quite certain that he'd taken a hell of a detour.

It was either that, or Trost had become plunged into some bizarre alternate universe. What frightened him even more was that he got separated from his friends Eren and Mikasa. Being in such a strange world was worrisome enough as it was.

His first stop in what he referred to as a 'district' (in reality, it seemed to be an entirely different country. He didn't know what other terms he could use, though) was some village made entirely of sweets. Whatever was in the air in that place (probably sugar) made his head hurt to smell it.

The next stop was somehow even weirder; Armin could've sworn the inhabitants (and indeed the village itself) were all cutouts from a picture book, a very strange picture book.

Thankfully, the last place he went to looked relatively normal.

Nothing looked wrong in some unexplainable way. For this, he was grateful. None of the residents seemed to be particularly hostile or even very interested in seeing a new face in their wonderful little city. Armin was grateful for this, as well. As convincingly as possible, he made himself seem like he'd always lived here.

It looked to have worked. Now all he needed to do was find a place to sit. Looking around, he couldn't see any open tables; all of them had at least two people at it, chatting away as they enjoyed their dinners.

Until he caught sight of a young boy in the back, who had his face looking downwards at something Armin couldn't see. It was then that Armin's legs started moving, almost of their own free will.

"Can I sit here?" He inquired as soon as he was standing close enough. The boy looked up from whatever it was he'd been reading, and nodded, smiling. His hair was such a light shade of blond, it was almost white. His bright blue eyes drifted to the empty chair across the table from him.

"I was waiting for my grandpa and brother to show up," the boy said as Armin took a seat, "but they're not here yet. So I'm just reading about something that interests me until they do get here."

"Oh?" Armin, being fond of reading himself, had his interest piqued now. "What about, if I may ask?" Then he realized how rude he was being, asking about such a thing when he hadn't even introduced himself yet. "My name's Armin, by the way."

The boy's smile became a little bigger. "Nice to meet you, Armin. My name's Fee!" He turned the book he had around and showed him. "I'm reading about all these places that used to exist in our world." Fee then turned a couple pages forward, and pointed to the sketching found on the left. "This one's my favorite, and I wanna go there someday; it's called the Ocean!" Immediately after he said this last word, Armin's ears pricked up.

"Ocean? I wanna go there, too! I have my own book that says a lot about it!" His enthusiasm faded a bit, then. "I just don't have it with me right now..."

"That's okay!" Fee turned another page, displaying a different picture. "I found out that the Ocean has this great big fish called a Whale swimming around in it." He looked up at Armin. "I'm gonna meet it one day, and make friends with it!" Seeing Fee's determination to meet this 'Whale' made Armin smile, being glad that someone else out there shared his interest. Then he decided to change the subject.

"So...you live with your grandpa?"

Fee nodded. "Yup! Him and my big brother. I..." He shrunk back, leading Armin to believe that perhaps he'd overstepped a boundary or two. "I don't remember my parents, and neither does my brother. We've tried asking Grandpa about it, but he never really tells us anything; he just says we're not supposed to know anything about it."

Now it was his turn to learn about Armin. "What about you? What's your family like?" This time, it was Armin who looked away.

"My parents died when I was little," he said with a sad voice. "My own grandpa raised me, but then he died too." He looked back at Fee. "Really, the only family I have left are my two best friends."

He tried perking up. "But they're the best friends I could ever ask for. I do miss my parents and Grandpa very much, but I'm glad I have the two of them."

Fee grinned, and tried to ask what Armin's friends were like, before he could hear a voice behind him. Armin could see an old man approaching.

"Well, now what is this?" The old man said to him. "We were gone not all that long, and here you are making a new friend!" Behind him, a blue-haired boy peeked out and looked at Armin with a suspicious look.

"New friend?" Then the boy pouted. "Don't tell me you've replaced me and Gramps already, Fee!"

Armin was just about to introduce himself to the newcomers, when there came a loud commotion from outside the building. It was mostly screaming and declarations of the main screamer being a complete lunatic. Quickly, all four plus any other patrons went out to see what exactly was going on.

To Armin's embarrassment, he recognized who it was immediately.


	2. Chapter 2

Eren probably should've figured that making an ass of himself in an unfamiliar land was not a good idea. 

And yet he was doing it anyway; as soon as he had entered the city, he'd started grabbing any poor bystander and screaming in their face to tell him where his best buddy went. Off to the side, Mikasa tried to make it look as if she wasn't really associated with this screaming loon. She still kept nearby in case he went too far. 

"What is this guy's _problem_?" One nearby gawker whispered to someone standing next to him. 

"Maybe he's an escapee from the Empire?" Another suggested. 

In the back, Armin's face was colored with embarrassment. He didn't know how to explain to his new friends that _this_ was who he was talking about. And though he wasn't aware of it just yet, all of it was about to get a _whole_ lot worse. 

"Why, whatever is all this? I was able to hear it all the way from the manor." The crowd looked over to the new voice, which contained a sort of lyrical effect. Many of them were in awe at the white-haired girl clothed in an elaborate dress ensemble. Eren even briefly quit with his yelling to look at her. 

"I hadn't known we would be receiving visitors from another land," she went on, walking through the slowly dispersing crowd. "Please forgive my rudeness, dear travelers. Though unexpected, your arrival in Balancoire is most welcomed." The way she moved, with her hands clasped in front of her, gave a swaying and almost dance-like rhythm. 

Armin bit his lip while the other two boys stood on their tiptoes to see better. While he watched, Armin could feel a sense of foreboding quickly approaching. It grew quicker when he saw a panicked and borderline crazed look on Eren's face as the girl walked closer to him. 

"If you both like," she said to Eren and Mikasa while reaching a hand out to the former, "you are welcome to visit my grandfather and I at our lovely little manor-" 

She didn't get to finish her sentence at that point. Once she'd gotten close enough, Eren grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her towards him. He then began shaking her violently, with her yelping of pain being heard on account of him having practically crushed her wrist. Mikasa, who had been standing and watching all this, stepped in to try and get him to stop.

"Eren, quit it!" She cried out. "She can't possibly know where Armin is!" 

But Eren simply ignored her, and continued throttling the poor girl, demanding to know where Armin was. As he did, the crowd surrounding him was becoming increasingly agitated and angered by his actions. 

"Who does that boy think he is?!" Shouted a bystander. 

"How dare he! Assaulting our beloved Lady Melodia like that!" Yelled another. 

Now there quickly came a pack of guards, intent on getting Eren to stop doing what he was doing. Mikasa tried to pry him away from the girl, somehow to no avail. Armin just knew this was all getting ugly. It seemed the other three could just sense it as well. 

...

The next few moments passed by in almost a sort of blur. The guards were quick to subdue Eren, and getting Lady Melodia away from him. Melodia, with her earlier poise and grace now gone, demanded that he and Mikasa be thrown into the dungeon (Mikasa was done as a safety measure, in case she was an accomplice). Of course, the bystanders had asked for worse, but this would suffice for them. 

Armin could only watch in horror as the guards led the other two away. At least he did until Fee snapped him out of it. 

"Well," he said to Armin, "I guess that's going to be an interesting story to tell your friends when they get here." There was no way that Fee didn't hear Armin's name, and not put two and two together. 

"Uhhh, Fee?" Thankfully, his brother was a touch more attentive. It was still very uncomfortable to explain to him just who those two were. 

...

Luckily, Fee's older brother knew a secret passage to the dungeon under the manor; it smelled bad and it was none too pretty to look at, but it worked better than having to try and break in through the entrance. 

"Why haven't you told me about this, Kalas?" The boys' grandfather asked of him. "Are you saying you've trespassed here at least once?" He didn't sound all too happy with his grandson. 

Kalas just shrugged, as though trespassing was really no big deal. "I didn't get very far if that's what you're asking me, Gramps." 

In the back of the group, Armin kept his head down while all of them strode through the filthy sewage. The smell was so bad, he had to muster up a significant amount of willpower not to pinch his nose shut. He was also unsure whether or not he should initiate conversation with the other three. 

As all of them trudged further through the tunnels, Eren could be heard loudly protesting his wrongful imprisonment. Mikasa was also heard, though not nearly as well as Eren. At least grateful that neither of them were dead, Armin tried catching up to the others. 


	3. Chapter 3

"Kalas, what is it?" 

"Um..." Kalas was dumbfounded at the split in the sewer now. He sure didn't recall this ever being here; it was possible that he'd never gotten this far. With this in mind, his face was turning red from the embarrassment. 

Armin, meanwhile, stepped forward, rapidly looking back and forth between the two large tunnels. He slowly lifted up his arm, before extending it fully in one of the directions given to him. He still kept his arm up as he turned to look at the others again, trying to ignore Eren's shouting starting up again. 

"I'll go this way," he told the other three, then put down one arm before lifting up the other. "And you guys go that way." He already started down his designated route by the time any of them thought to say anything. 

...

Fee, Kalas, and their grandfather just stared after him, admiring his determination to find his buddy. Then they all came to their senses and went down the tunnel he said to go through. 

"After all this," Fee and Kalas' grandfather said to the two of them, "do you think your new friend would like to stay for dinner, Fee?" Despite it being a polite question, and suggestion, Fee kept quiet. He wasn't even looking in the right direction; he just kept looking over his shoulder. 

"Hey Fee," Kalas said to try and get his attention, "what is it?" Again, Fee didn't answer. What he did do was turn and run in the opposite direction, ignoring the other two's protests of confusion and agitation. To his relief, Armin hadn't gotten too far down his own tunnel. 

...

Hearing the sound of footsteps splashing behind him got Armin to stop and turn to look. He actually jumped back a little bit when he saw Fee approaching him. 

"Fee?! What...?" But Fee just kept walking closer until he was right at Armin's side. He smiled gently, if a bit in a naughty manner. 

"I wanna talk more about the Ocean while we go find your friends," he said as his stride started to sync up with Armin's. "Like what you'd want to ask the Whale when you finally get to meet it! And maybe see what other kinds of fish and creatures are in that big old pool of water!" 

The way that Fee was chattering on did seem endearing to Armin. He also found it a bit flattering (if surprising) to find someone with such a desire to see the Ocean, one that rivaled his own. For the rest of the way, that was indeed what the two of them did. Fee was just so enchanted by anything related to the Ocean, even the scarier bits. 

"Apparently, there used to be a big scary fish called a Megalodon," he told Armin, as he stretched his arms out to try and give an idea about what he was talking about. "It was like a super-sized version of this other scary fish called a shark. It was big, and it could eat almost _anything!_ I don't think it's as big as the Whale, but it's still super big!

"And they say it somewhere in that big, big ocean..." Here Fee leaned in closer to Armin and dropped his voice down to a loud whisper. "They say it could still exist." 

Now Armin was sort of wishing that Fee would use synonyms. Instead of telling him that, he just gave his own desires. 

"I saw something in my own book about something called a seashell." It wasn't nearly as exciting as what Fee told him, but it was better than nothing. "There's all kinds of them, and if you lift certain ones up to your ear, you can hear the Ocean itself!" 

And it went on like that, the two of them going back and forth about the things that they hopefully could find when either of them reached the Ocean. 

Both of them stopped when they realized they'd reached a room full of cells, mostly empty ones. The one closest to them wasn't, though. 

If he stood up on his tiptoes, Armin could just catch a glimpse of Eren flailing his arm through the cell bars. The guard on duty told him to knock it off, before leaving to probably find the next soldier to take over. Armin took this chance to run up a flight of stairs to reach the other two. 


	4. Chapter 4

Eren's eyes lit up when he saw Armin and that other kid (but mostly Armin) coming up the steps. He was silenced, however, by Armin putting a finger to his lips. There was no need to cause such a commotion and risk all of them winding up in the same jail cell together. 

"We need to find a way to get you guys out of here," Fee whispered to them. "Usually the guards have some kind of cell key nearby, or with them." As he was speaking, Armin was already on the lookout for said keys. He was also on the lookout for any guards that may have been patrolling the area. 

The problem, however, was the sheer size of the place; there looked to be practically a hundred cells in all. The Lady Melodia was evidently from good money (as if her title alone didn't indicate that), if her manor's dungeon was anything to sneeze at (which it was). Nevertheless, Armin started walking about and trying to find anything that could be of use. 

As he did, Armin could then hear the voices of the other two arriving via the sewer, giving no regard whatsoever to being discreet. 

...

"Fee!" Calling out his brother's name, Kalas and his grandfather were out of breath and on the verge of toppling over from exhaustion. "You gotta not run off like that! What would you do if it turned out these guys had ulterior motives?" 

Not liking what Kalas was implying, Fee shrugged. "I'm a big boy. And they don't look to be that much of a threat. 

"And besides," he went on, turning to look at Armin and the other two. "something about them seems trustworthy. I can feel it." This compliment (at least, he was taking it as one) got Armin to blush a little. 

The pleasantries were halted, right then and there, by the door to the prison room starting to creak open. Quickly, Fee grabbed Armin by the wrist and pulled him down the steps, back into the sewer. Shortly after, Kalas and their grandfather were right behind them. 

...

"I still don't understand why you're risking your life for these children, Fee." The boys' grandfather said quietly. "You've only just met _this_ young man." Here, he gestured to Armin. "And I very much doubt you even know who those other two are." 

"I told you, Grandpa," Fee told him in response. "I feel like I can trust them. Didn't you once say that sometimes you just have to go with your gut on some things? That's what I'm doing right now." Seeing that Fee wasn't going to change his mind about helping Armin and his friends, Kalas sighed and then stepped forward again. 

Then Armin watched as his walking broke into a run, gasping quietly to himself when he suddenly jumped in the air on a pair of mismatched wings. That was certainly a sight he didn't expect to see. 

...

Just as the guard came in to begin his shift, Eren and Mikasa were stunned to see Kalas fly up seemingly out of nowhere. The guard was also stunned, right before Kalas pounced on him from midair yelling "Surprise!". A brief fight ensued, with the two imprisoned kids watching in awe. 

Thankfully, it ended in Kalas' favor. The guard was left unconscious on the ground as he stood back up, waving the key and grinning. That grin remained as he strode over and unlocked the jail cell. 

"Hope this experience doesn't sour your opinion on this city," he snarked while opening the door for them, and leading them back to the others. As he did, his expression switched to one of somberness. "Believe me when I say it actually can get a whole lot worse, though." 

When he said this, he pointed to his left wing. He then reached up and grabbed it, revealing it to be detachable. For whatever reason, Eren and Mikasa were fascinated by it. But before either of them could ask about it, Armin ran over to hug the both of them. 

...

After leaving the dungeon (and the promise that any unpleasantness would be dealt with), the group then proceeded on to Fee's house. As they went, Armin and Fee were of course chatting about what they'd been going on about since they met. From the sound of things, the Ocean had numerous surprises and delights for anyone who managed to discover it. 

"I'm a little surprised that there's someone out there who shares his interest in that," Mikasa uttered to any of the others. 

"Likewise," Fee and Kalas' grandfather said in response. "But it's good to see him making a friend." 

It was then quiet again, save for the two boys going on about what fish besides the Whale they'd wanted to see. It went on like this all the way to Fee's house. Which was good enough for all of them. From the time they arrived to the time they left, the group actually had a pretty good time in Balancoire. 

When it was time to leave that night, it actually hurt to do so. Knowing it was very likely that neither would see the other again (Eren, Mikasa, and Armin didn't even know how they reached Balancoire's island in the first place) made it worse. Even so, Armin held back tears as he waved goodbye to Fee and his family.

To know that there was a kindred spirit somewhere in the known universe, that was enough to put a smile on Armin's face. 


End file.
